Engulf: Melee Attack Using Quickness. Each Victim’s Turn, Opposed Test using Victim’s Strength and Spirit’s Force. If Victim wins, freedom. Each of the spirit’s actions, engulfed creatures take damage (including the action when they were engulfed).

Bio:

Brief Background:
He was born as Sean Patrick Flannery in Portland, OR, US on May 14, 1999. He was a spike baby. He was orphaned at age two due to an auto accident, and only has the vaguest memories of his parents as a result. He entered the child welfare system, being raised in a Catholic orphanage in Portland. There he was a rather lonely kid, made fun of for being too skinny and having weird ears. At age six, in 2005, he was taken in by the Xavier Foundation. There he was taught that elves are the chosen race of people, superior to all others. He was taught basic magical principles, the principles of the society that they would build in time, and prepared for the dangers they would all face when there were more than a handfull of elves in the world, as well as general education of course. Here is where he first learned to really be himself and not only not be ashamed of his ‘weird looks’ but to take pride in them. As a result of this, he looks to Sean Laverty as a father-figure and the other children from the Foundation rather as siblings. The Foundation protected its charges from the worst of the Awakening, from the riots and people freaking out, thanks to its secluded location, subdued atmosphere, and excellent security. Sean of course participated in the founding of the Tir and its military stance to ensure the new nation would be able to gain true and proper independence.
By 2038, being over thirty years old and most of the more extreme dangers seeming to have faded, Sean left the Foundation’s safety to make his way in the world. He applied to and was accepted into Tir Tairngire University (of course) where he completed his Bachelor’s Degree in only two years, before temporarily leaving the Tir for Texas A&M&M for his postgraduate studies. Receiving his ThD in Conjuring and Magical Theory in 2044, he took up work as a postdoctoral researcher helping one of the professors, which he worked on until 2049.
In 2049 he was approached by a magical think-tank regarding his Master’s thesis, which was a thought experiment. Basically the idea is this: as near as anyone could tell, there was no extreme limit on how powerful spirits could be. Theoretically they could keep getting stronger over time with no ultimate limit due to their lack of a biology to restrain their growth and development. Correspondingly, it would make sense if the creatures we knew as gods really do exist, they’re probably extremely powerful spirits. Thus, we should be able to contact them, and ultimately learn from them, and just perhaps eventually learn to control them.
With a huge, state-of-the-art research facility in Portland, an incredibly lucrative contract, gigantic libraries of knowledge to draw upon, and more, Sean was over the moon. He worked hard and diligently with his team over the next several years to try to draw out all the secrets of the spirits and the rules that govern their existence.
How long the research lasted rather depends on when exactly the campaign is set, but about 15 months before play, Something Went Wrong. During an extremely intensive summoning ritual, the whole facility apparently exploded. Sean was miraculously unhurt; everyone else in the building was crushed under tons of rubble. Despite appearing uninjured, however, Sean spent the next year and a day in a coma. When he awoke he had no recollection of exactly what had happened. His body had atrophied in the extreme. Nobody wanted to hire him in magical research after the way he apparently screwed up his last assignment, and the monumental investment that his backers had put into the facility. Not only that but almost all of his savings had been eaten up by hospital bills.
Left blackballed from getting work in his primary field, and determined to find out what happened so that he can ultimately figure out what happened and fix his reputation so that he can get back to his normal life, Sean took up the name Erebus and moved to Seattle to run the Shadows. He could’ve gotten menial but legal work but that’d never give him an opportunity to find out what happened, so really if he ever wants to restore his life to the way it ‘should’ be, running the Shadows is basically his only choice.

BACKGROUND:
1) Where’s your character from?
He was born as Sean Patrick Flannery in Portland, OR on May 14, 1999. This makes him a spike baby. He was orphaned at age two due to an auto accident, and entered the child welfare system. At age six he was taken in by the Xavier Foundation, an exclusive boarding school/orphanage started by Sean Laverty whose mission was to find and rescue Elven spike babies. Page 50 in the Tir Tairngire book talks about it some. Interestingly, Dodger was also one of the spike babies rescued by the Xavier Foundation, according to one of the novels.

2) Does your character have a family?
He doesn’t have any biological family left alive, but he looks to Sean Laverty as sort of a father-figure, and the others from the orphanage rather like siblings.

3) Does your character have an ethnic background?
Pictish Irish. That is, “Black Irish”

APPEARANCE
4) What does your character look like?
Picture included.

5) What does your character dress like?
He tends to dress normally and nicely most of the time. Pants, a decent shirt maybe slightly frilly, often his armored jacket since Seattle is rather dangerous. He doesn’t go in for the chains and biker leathers, or mohawks, and he doesn’t walk around with things covered in mystical symbols, so he probably dresses like an average corporate slag.

6) Does your character have physical quirks?
He’s recently gotten out of the hospital after being in a coma for a year and a day, so he still walks rather stiffly and with some trouble, and his cardiovascular health, muscle mass, and coordination have decreased rather severely.

SKILLS, ATTRIBUTES, ANDRESOUCES
7) Where did your character learn their Active Skills?
The bulk of them were probably taught at the Xavier Foundation, along with others that he lost over time due to disuse. He started with just theoretical understandings, but once the magic started coming back he was able to really learn to use the magical skills in earnest. All proper boarding schools teach basic etiquette, and over the years he’s had to deal with all sorts of people, from magicians to elves to corporate types, academics, researchers, and so on. This is where he learned to be good at Etiquette. Negotiation is actually a combination of utilizing his natural Charisma to its obvious conclusion, learning to have a good poker face, and learning to strike excellent bargains: an important skill if one wishes to deal with entities beyond normal human experience. Getting people to do your bidding is an important first step before you can get such powerful entities to do you bidding, after all.

8) Where did your character learn their Knowledge Skills?
The animal ken skill is a natural talent that he’s never really studied specifically but has gotten very good at through practice. He’s always liked animals and they’ve always liked him, and on an intuitive level he understands how they want to be treated and how to get them to do his bidding. He’s been magically active since the magic came back, and the Magic Background is a natural extention of that. He’s been around and seen all sorts of things, after all, and was even a magical researcher, he attended the Xavier Foundation and then went on to study at MIT&M, so it only makes sense that would be very high. Along similar lines he learned about the darker side of magic, and the threats that are out there waiting to pounce on the unwary. Spell design was largely learned at the Xavier Institute and MIT&M. It’s a generally useful thing to be able to do, so would have been practiced throughout his life. Spirits are his passion, and he’s learned about them from eager study, to talking to people, to a great deal of research in a magical lab, to asking the spirits themselves, including even a free spirit. His knowledge of Tir Tairngire in general comes from having lived there so long, having been around since before its inception, having been schooled in its ways since it was still the United States, and having followed news about it as his homeland since leaving. Tir Tairngire Secrets comes from being raised in the Xavier Foundation, being around one of the people that founded the place and gradually gleaning things from him, understanding that the nation’s founding was planned long before the Awakening, and all the rumors and secrets heard around the time of, before, and after the nation’s founding. English and Sperethiel he’s both immensely adept with because English was his native language, and Sperethiel is the language he was mostly raised with.

9) Where did your character get his goodies?
Before “the incident” Erebus actually had a very lucrative job in magical research and had a great deal of savings. While the hospital bills took the vast majority of his savings, there was enough left to buy some halfway decent equipment before embarking upon his new career path, even if most of it was gotten from street-level contacts rather than legally. His bioware was actually acquired legally; a Cerebral Booster and a Mnemonic Enhancer have obvious benefits to anyone involved in research, and the trauma damper was installed to help keep him from dying while summoning spirits that were entirely too powerful.

10) Where does your character live?
His primary doss is a small Snohomish farm largely surrounded by agribusinesses. The farm’s soil has such a low pH that it can’t really support crops anymore, and so since it can’t support agribusiness, it was sold cheap considering the size of the grounds. Noir, his Blackberry Cat, largely lives in the farmhouse. He’s left the fields fallow in the hopes that natural systems will reclaim the soil in time, though he also wants to learn a Clean Earth spell in order to help it along, planning on eventually re-selling the place with airable land in the future. He’s added four large storage sheds such as for vehicles to the property, situated from the house at the cardinal directions, which contain large hermetic circles; the sheds for the air and fire elementals of course have retractable sections of the roof for ventilation.
His secondary doss is a small apartment in the Tarsilar elven enclave in Puyallup. It’s set up as a place to go hide and lay low if he’s being pursued or if his farm ever becomes compromised. After all, the elves in Tarsilar aren’t going to help any “human” authorities, so it’s a sensible place to go to ground.

11) Who are your character’s contacts?

Prince Sean Lavery: Tir Prince. Level 2 (Buddy)
Description: Elf. Height: Average. DOB: Unknown. Weight: Slightly above average for height. Parents: Unknown. Hair Color: Dark red. Eye Color: Green. Distinguishing Features: Unlike most of his contemporaries, Laverty is clean-shaven.
The least technologically oriented of the ruling five Princes, Laverty’s opposition to the Info: Tir’s increasing reliance on technology seems almost fevered at times. He gives substantial backing to several back-to-nature and so-called “green” organizations in the Tir, but rather than being anti-technology, Laverty seems mainly concerned with the dehumanizing aspects of its applications. Laverty created the Xavier Foundation, an exclusive boarding school/orphanage south of Portland, near the turn of the century.
Relationship: Being adopted by the Foundation at age 3 due to being a spike baby, and raised within the Xavier Foundation, I came to see Sean Laverty as very much a father figure, and he’s always treated all of the children from the Foundation rather like his children. As with everyone there, I look up to him as a father figure, and he tends to watch out for those of us raised in the orphanage. I didn’t buy in completely into the idea that the Elves are the chosen people, superior to all others, but despite this he gave me respect and let me pursue my own dreams.

Glitter: Model & Free Spirit. Level 2 (Buddy)
Description: Human. 5’8", blonde, green eyes, light skin. Obviously she’s extremely attractive, being a professional model, and possessed of enormous charisma.
Info: Glitter is a fashion model, notorious for dating bad boys. Many of her lovers are sinless runners and corporate expediters, or mages and shamans which seems to be her other favorite pastime. She is know for her fascination with magic and its spell slingers. She is not however a mage as far as anyone knows though, so her fascination appears to be just that. But those that truly know her, know she harbors a great secret. A secret that could bring down her whole career some say. Glitter has many connections in the world of high fashion and many contacts with mages, shamans, runners, and corporate elites. Her big secret, Erebus knows, is that she’s actually a Free Spirit, most likely (but not certainly) a free air elemental, or perhaps fire elemental.
Relationship: I met Glitter shortly after she managed to become Free. Curiously, rather than depart to her metaplane, she was interested in staying in this world. Not willing to risk someone binding her before she could build up some strength, I took her in and taught her some about the world, and we’ve been good friends since. She’s quite fully sentient, and despite her somewhat unrestrained morals, I don’t think she seems quite demonic, and she doesn’t make a habit of particularly hurting anyone physically or spiritually, so I don’t see any reason to try to bind her. She’s her own person, and hopefully with some caring guidance I can help her be a moral person. For her part, I think she’s grateful for my help, and since I’m the only person she can share her secret with, I think that helps things as well.

Farshorn: Healer and Talismonger. Level 2 (Buddy)
Description: Elf. 6’1", red hair, blue eyes. Tends to dress in robes of all things, and has a habit of placing his hands in the opposite sleeves.
Info: A skilled magical and herbal healer, and owner of a medium-sized lore store in Snohomish named The Green Nymph. Named after his Ally Spirit, a green water nymph named Nemea. Page 129 of New Seattle has some information on him.
Relationship: The Green Nymph is one of my favorite hangouts in Seattle. Snohomish doesn’t have very many elves, and not very magicians either, but both groups tend to gather at the lore store which also serves teas and wines. After I helped to fight off a Humanis assault on the shop, he really opened up to me, and we became great friends. We have a lot in common: being elves, being from the Tir, being magicians, Snohomish, wanting to find ways to better the world, and so on. Besides talking shop we also go to the Barrens most weeks to try to give what aid we can to the people there.

Charlotte: Fixer and Spider Shaman. Level 1
Description: Human. When she shows herself to me, she usually appears as a human woman of about fifty, white hair tied up in a bun, and ice-blue eyes.
Info: Very skilled conjurer. Spider Shamans love to create webs of secrets and contacts, and so do Fixers, so to her it seemed like a perfectly logical match.
Relationship: Purely business. She’s polite but not chatty. She’s serious and professional. I try to be the same when discussing business, so we get along very well. She makes it clear what she expects from me, and she knows I’ll do my best to follow through with it.

Sofia Leadbetter: Paraveterinarian. Level 1
Description: Human, 30’s. Black hair, light skin, blue eyes. Keeps her hair cut short, and favors simple, sturdy clothing. Not very attractive, but extremely intelligent and kind.
Info: A paraveterinarian. That is, a veterinarian who focuses on paranatural creatures. She works at Blackstone’s Museum and Zoo of the Paranatural in Snohomish, which is a privately owned zoo and museum. She’s also the daughter of the zoo/museum’s curator.
Relationship: I met Sophia while visiting the zoo. I’ve always liked animals of most sorts, and we struck up a conversation and found we got along. She’s actually the one who arranged for Noir, my Blackberry Cat, and she helps me make sure I’m taking proper care of her. She does animal adoptions in Downtown every other weekend, and sometimes I’ll volunteer there.

Mustang Sally: Rigger / Mechanic. Level 1.
Description: Human, Amerindian, 20’s. Black hair, brown eyes, tanned skin. Thin and rather attractive for a human. She favors wearing black leathers.
Info: Mustang Sally got her start in the a go-gang. One of the most skilled riders, she was recruited to become a combat biker. Her patron paid for her rigging controls, but before the team could get going the Patron was killed and the team members got dispersed. Sally returned the gang life. Then came that fateful call, the crew chief from the combat biker team said he needed a driver for a little job and wanted to know if she wanted to make some quick dough. She took the job and completed her first run. The fixer of the first job told her about another job and a career was born. She took her name after she bought an old 60’s Mustang, and someone told her about an old song called Mustang Sally. The rest is history as the say. Sally spends lots of nuyen on her new toys, including bikes, cars, and her newest hobby: drones. This means she must keep busy earning nuyen. She still has ties to her old gang and stays in contact.
Relationship: I met Sally on my very first Run. She was the team’s Rigger, responsible for physical surveillance as well as transport and get-away driving. I honestly didn’t think we’d have much in common, but listening to her talk about what it feels like to be inside her car is really inspiring, and she’s always wanting to know what it’s like in astral space. A couple of times a month I’ll go with her to a street-race and cheer her on. Sometimes she’ll come watch me perform a conjuring and just sort of be there for moral support, though I’ve always figured it must be boring.

Hannah Minx: Cat Shaman. Level 1.
Description: Human, Caucasian, 20’s. Long black hair, large blue eyes, light skin. Extremely well-endowed and rather pretty. Favors wearing nekomimi (cat ears) and ribbons or butterflies in her hair.
Info: Hannah Minx is both a Cat Shaman and a weeaboo. That is, she’s obsessed with Japanese ‘culture’ mostly in the form of manga/anime/tranime (trinime? 3d anime), she loves throwing in random (poorly pronounced) Japanese words into a conversation, and of course every man she dates is Japanese. She tried being a corp-mage for almost two years before she decided she’d blow her brains out with the mindnumbing boredom of it if she kept going any longer, finding corporate life infinitely too structured for her freedom-loving and independent nature. Thus, she became a Shadowrunner, and is a damned fine illusionist, which makes her useful to teams. She’s generally very happy and perky.
Relationship: Though her perkiness can be frustrating in large doses, in small doses she’s a lot of fun to hang out with. Her enthusiasm is genuine and infectious, even if I don’t really share her extreme admiration of the Japanese. Some of the anime we watch together is enjoyable enough though. She likes to give me makeovers for different looks as well, and she absolutely adores Noir. For my part, she never ceases to cheer me up if I’m feeling down, and her up-beat and positive attitude always make me smile.

12) Who are your character’s enemies?
Well, as far as he knows, he doesn’t really have any. He has a few of the children from the Foundation he didn’t really like. He might’ve slightly screwed over some people in his days as an academic. His former financial backers probably aren’t too happy with him but didn’t have him killed since he’s the only way to discover what went wrong. He considers Humanis an enemy though.

13) How did your character learn magic
He was taught the basics of it at the Foundation before the magic even came back. Once it did he began learning it more properly. This is why his studies at TTU and Texas A&M&M went by so quickly and effectively; it was essentially just practicing things he already knew.

PERSONALITY
14) What are your character’s likes and dislikes?
Likes:
Learning. His favorite thing ever is to learn. He loves to uncover mysteries, especially relating to magic. He loves learning new things and learning to use old knowledge in new ways.
Catholic Church. He’s only nominally Catholic but still has a soft spot, despite having been rather hurt when a former Pope condemned both elves and magic. At least they saw the error of that eventually.
Doing good. Like everyone, he tries to be a good person. He doesn’t have the world’s strictest moral code, but if he does something to hurt someone, he’ll try to sort of “make up” for it in some way by helping others.
Elves. Even though he’s mostly rejected the idea of elves being the supreme race, exalted above all others, to some extent that’s still stuck with him, so he tends to be positively disposed toward elves in general.
Melons – especially honeydew and watermelon – and strawberries and blueberries.
Once in a while, a really good steak. Even though he’s allergic and spends three hours in the bathroom after he eats one.
Power. Yeah, he tries to be a good person, but ultimately he wants to grow strong, to push himself beyond his limits. He’s not brutal and ruthless in this pursuit. He would never dream of sacrificing someone, for example. But he does relish his power, especially his magical potency.

Dislikes:
Bigotry. This is why he hates Humanis. He never had to live through the horrible things that metas outside of the Foundation did, but he saw enough of it, and he knows that those people who were hurt and killed could’ve been him if he hadn’t been so fortunate.
Willful ignorance. Few things make him so frustrated as someone who will ignore something right under their nose because they don’t like it.
Slavery, particularly of free spirits after having spent a lot of time with Glitter. He’d have few qualms about binding a free spirit he considered to be a demon, but short of that, it’s abhorrent.

15) What is your character’s moral code?
While he was somewhat raised Catholic, and tries to be a generally moral person, he doesn’t exactly have a specific code he lives by or anything. He tries not to hurt anyone to get what he wants, but recognizes that sometimes it’s unavoidable and part of the nature of the world. If he hurts someone, he tries to sort of make up for it. If he can’t help that person then he’ll help someone else, hoping that the bad karma becomes balanced. He does view most non-free spirits as demons though. He usually considers the spirits he summons to be demons, following Goetia and the Keys of Solomon. However he also believes in the invocation of angels, and would never /order/ them around, instead asking and beseeching them for their aid.

16) Does your character have goals?
Short Term: Get at least back to the state I was in before the Incident, mind and body.
Moderate Term: Initiate to be able to more freely explore the metaplanes.
Moderate to Long Term: Create a Spirit Ally (or in his terms, either powerfully bind a demon to his will, or more likely come to an arrangement with a minor angel) to be a friend, companion, ally and maybe (depending) a lover.
Moderate to Long Term: Learn to understand the Demons
Long Term: Gain enough information and evidence to publish a proper paper in the thaumaturgical journals to restore my reputation in the magical community and to make having a “normal” life possible again.
Long Term: Grow strong enough to prove to Sean Laverty that he didn’t make a mistake in recruiting me, that we can grow strong without acting superior to everyone else.
Very Long Term: Attain immortality to have more time to uncover even more mysteries and to learn even more.

17) Does your character have personal beliefs?
He’s nominally Catholic as far as spiritual belief goes. He believes that generally when he summons a spirit it’s a demon. That many of the spirits humanity controls are demons, even if not all of them do anything overtly and obviously evil. He believes one can also invoke angels, however. His reasoning for this is that, essentially, God is good. Therefore he wouldn’t give Metahumanity such easy access to controlling sentient, intelligent, good creatures. This means that either most spirits are evil and thus okay to control, or alternatively that most of them are not sentient. He’s not completely sure which of these he believes in regarding the spirits other people summon. However, magic does allow one to enslave people against their will, and so one can also enslave a free and sentient spirit. Sometimes this is okay if they’re a demon. If they’re not a demon, however, it is wrong to enslave them and therefore should be stopped.

18) Does your character have personality quirks?
Way deep down, he’s fairly lonely.
He tends to be somewhat stubborn once he makes up his mind.
He’s got a bit of a short fuse, but a tight rein on it too.
He has immense patience, but little tolerance for certain things, such as willful ignorance.

RUNNINGTHESHADOWS
19) Why does your character run the shadows?
Essentially it’s because he doesn’t have any other good choices. He does have a SIN so he could go get a new job somewhere flopping soyburgers. But his training is in magical research, and he’s been blackballed from that field, however. It’s the thing he wants to do, what he likes to do. The only way to make the contacts and money necessary to find out what happened and how to fix it, to gain the breadth of experience necessary to find a way to restore his reputation, is Shadowrunning.

20) How does your character view his/her role as a shadowrunner?
He thinks of it sort of like being an oddjobs person. He does whatever it is is needed for the pay, from hunting down a lost cat to repairing a roof. It’s illegal, sure, but you’re doing criminal activities against criminals (for the most part) for other criminals. In the end it’s not something he likes to think about, but accepts for the goal of one day regaining his reputation and going back to living a comfortable life unlocking the secrets of the universe.
Of course given his talents, on a team he usually winds up negotiating, talking to people, providing spell support, having his elementals do whatever’s needed, and performing astral overwatch.